The Third Body

Editor: Haus der Kulturen der Welt, 2004
Softcover, 200 pages
Approx. 150 illustrations, with 32 pages 4/4-colours
Verlag Theater der Zeit, Berlin 2004
ISBN: 3-934344-27-2
Price: € 14

Out of print, possibly available in antiquarian bookshops. Book on zvab.com

The dance and theatre scenes in Africa, Asia and Latin America have grown phenomenally over the past twenty years. It no longer makes any sense to contrast Western modernity and contemporary art with the theatre scenes of the “Third World.” The definitions of theatre and performance have changed forever. Categories such as “modern” and “contemporary,” “cultural identity” and “avant-garde” are now being examined. Migration, globalisation and post-colonialism are the new realities and models used to describe the changes taking place. The stage has become a central platform for this process of social, political and artistic transformation.

The House of World Cultures in Berlin has been following this process for the past fifteen years and has responded by staging exemplary projects. With guest performances, co-productions and own productions it has not only followed these developments primarily in Africa, Asia and the two Americas, but also shown new tendencies and, by integrating them into its interdisciplinary work, presented them in relation to the social changes occurring throughout the world. The present book summarises the House of World Cultures’ work in the area of performing arts and also provides, for the first time, an extensive collection of new contributions on the question of “globalisation/internationalisation and the performing arts.”

It includes contributions, from both a theoretical and a practical standpoint, by such authors as Wole Soyinka, Anuradha Kapur, Ong Keng Sen, André Lepecki, Coco Fusco, Guillermo Gomez-Peña, among others.